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Happy to report that the “SunWatch” held by the Eddington Astronomical Society of Kendal yesterday was a great success!

The weather was fantastic, there were half a dozen telescopes gathered in Kendal’s Abbot Hall Park, and the Sun boasted a lovely necklace of sunspots for our steady flow of visitors to look at – just about perfect!

Here’s how the Sun looked yesterday:

And here’s the rather impressive “chain” of sunspots we were able to show people…

So, we set up at around 1.45, and soon people began to wander over to see what we were doing. We were able to show them the Sun through a variety of telescopes – some projected the Sun’s image onto a piece of card, another was fitted with a solar filter to allow direct and safe viewing of the Sun. We were very thankful that Cockermouth AS’s Chris Darwin came down to join in the day, and brought the Society’s solar telescope with him, so we were able to show people lots of prominences leaping up off the Sun’s limb, too!

Not sure how many people came along yesterday – 50 maybe? – but it was a very enjoyable afternoon, not just because it gave us a chance to show the public something they wouldn’t normally see, but also because it gave EAS members a chance to observe together, compare telescopes and just natter on about astronomy!